Main Body
The Paper Chase
Dealing with paperwork is one of the greatest challenges facing teachers. Collecting papers, keeping track of papers, grading papers, and passing papers back can be overwhelming. Fortunately, there are relatively easy ways to handle the onslaught and preserve your sanity.
29. Collecting Papers
Collecting papers efficiently means you don’t waste class time in the initial gathering, and you don’t waste time searching for misplaced papers. Consider these ideas:
Examples
- All students turn in a sheet of paper, either the assignment or a sheet of paper that says they don’t have the assignment to turn in and why. This makes it very easy to keep track of papers and eliminates, “You lost my paper!” excuses. Count the papers to be sure you have all of them. Keep the “no paper” sheets for your records. Paperclip the papers together!
- Count the papers from each row or table and jot down the names for missing work. Paperclip the papers together!
- Have students pass papers to the front or to one person in the cluster/row and have that person count to be sure all papers are there. Paperclip the papers together!
- Use the “ticket out the door” system. Students can’t leave until they hand in the assignment. Paperclip the papers together!
My procedure for collecting papers
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Note: If students are sitting in rows and passing papers in, decide whether they will pass them “up” or “across” and practice doing it without talking. They put their paper on top of the one passed to them and continue the process.
30. Grading Papers
Feedback is important, but it does not always have to come from us. Students should be engaged in grading or evaluating much of what they do. The feedback is more immediate and, after all, as Harry Wong says: “Whoever is doing all the work is doing all the learning.” Try this approach:
Furthermore, there are many effective, time-saving approaches that we can use when we are doing the grading. Here are some options to consider. Put a √ by the ones you think might work for you.
Examples
- On work that is repeated practice, go over most of the questions in class. Then, based on that work, have students look at their answers for the remaining two or three questions and make any changes they like. Grade just those last ones.
- Avoid collecting whole notebooks to grade! Instead, give a notebook quiz. Students use their notebooks to answer specific questions on one sheet of paper. For example, “What was the answer to the third question on the lab procedures test?”
- Use separate pre-printed answer sheets. (Keep in mind that some students with special needs cannot transfer information to a separate answer sheet.) This reduces the number of papers you have to handle and eliminates the need to hunt for answers.
- Make a rubric (scoring guide) and hand it out with the work to be done. Insist students use it to guide and self-grade their work. Use it for your own grading. (Great to send home to parents!)
- On assignments where answers involve similar concepts, tell students to mark two or three questions they want you to grade.
- Whenever possible, make Thursday night’s assignment something that will NOT produce papers for you to take home and grade Friday night or over the weekend! For example, read for fifteen minutes, organize your note book, or watch the news.
- Have students hand in the work and then announce the two or three key questions you will be grading.
- For short answer questions, grade two or three papers side-by-side.
- Students tend to make consistent errors in their writing (spelling, grammar, etc.). Therefore, on occasion, a sample of their writing may be all you need to grade a particular assignment. Have students use a ruler to block off the inch or two of writing they want you to grade.
Other
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31. Returning Papers
This is probably the worst time waster of all! Many frequently used approaches are problematic in and of themselves or create problems. These include the following practices:
- Calling students one-by-one to get their papers
- Running around the room delivering papers as the names appear in the stack
- Leaving papers in a designated place where students pick them up
Also, students can pass back papers, but this has the potential for creating issues of privacy and, depending on the class and/or the student who is passing the papers, issues of classroom management.
The following system is quick, private, and creates no management issues:
- Students are assigned a seating code (a letter or number) according to the row or table where they sit. Students place that code in the upper left hand corner of each paper they hand in.
- After grading a set of papers, the teacher sorts the papers by codes and crisscrosses the bunches. Papers then can be passed back quickly either by rows or tables (if privacy isn’t an issue on a particular paper) or individually.
- Papers with no code are placed in a Dead Letter Box where students can pick them up at designated times.
My procedure for passing back papers
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